{"id":18835,"date":"2021-09-06T18:08:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T18:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=18835"},"modified":"2021-09-06T18:08:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T18:08:01","slug":"afc-west-2021-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/afc-west-2021-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC WEST 2021 PREDICTIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheFirstMan\">BY ADAM GREENE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since 2016, the Kansas City Chiefs have dominated this division, winning five consecutive titles. They also managed one 11-5 Wild Card game appearance in 2015, the final year Peyton Manning dragged the Denver Broncos to the playoffs. It\u2019s been a decade of dominance for the entire AFC West with four Super Bowl appearances between the Broncos and Chiefs and two victories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Introducing our  $500,000 NFL MegaContest | BetOnline&#039;s Biggest Contest Ever!\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-oW1YrObh6M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The other teams in the AFC West haven\u2019t done much in that time frame, other than trade away their best players and hire the worst coaches, but it\u2019s a new year and things change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How much? We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>KANSAS CITY<\/strong><strong> CHIEFS: 14-3<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, not only do I think the Chiefs will repeat as AFC West champions, I think they\u2019ll post the best record in the AFC and claim home field advantage in the postseason too. That means the road to Los Angeles begins in Missouri, which is ironic considering St. Louis is still suing the Rams for leaving five years ago. You\u2019re the gateway to the west, St. Louis! Going to California is literally why you\u2019re even a town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kansas City had one weakness, their offensive line, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers exploited it thoroughly in the Super Bowl. They\u2019ve fixed it this offseason through trades, free agent signings and the draft, so what can you do if you\u2019re another AFC West team?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finish behind them in the standings. That\u2019s what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>LOS ANGELES CHARGERS: 11-6<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The best of the bunch of second bananas is none other than the Chargers, who accidentally found their franchise quarterback last season and inadvertantly had to start him because a team doctor stabbed Tyrod Taylor in the lung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>LA is loaded on both sides of the ball and could be some real trouble for Kansas City in the future as head coach Brandon Staley makes his mark on the division. Just not this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>DENVER<\/strong><strong> BRONCOS: 10-7<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the Broncos, a 10-win season would be the end of a half-decade of QB and team-wide futility and a return to the postseason. Head coach Vic Fangio has tabbed Teddy Bridgewater as his QB after a preseason battle with Drew Lock. Six of Denver\u2019s 11 losses were by a single score in 2020 and that was with the most turnover prone QB in the league. Bridgewater won\u2019t be that and the Broncos will actually have their other stars, namely Von Miller and Courtland Sutton, on the field and out of the rehab facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>LAS VEGAS<\/strong><strong> RAIDERS: 9-8<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re entering Year Four of Jon Gruden\u2019s inglorious return to coaching from the broadcast booth and I\u2019m betting it\u2019ll look a lot like Year Three. Have the Raiders done anything to get significantly better than last year\u2019s .500 team? Not that I can see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile everyone else in the division has. Las Vegas could be improved across the board and it just won\u2019t mean anything because the rest of the AFC West is too tough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NFL season begins on Thursday, Sep. 9 and the Week 1 Schedule is up and <a href=\"https:\/\/beta.betonline.ag\/sportsbook\/football\/nfl\">taking bets at BetOnline.AG<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Follow our BetOnline <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/betonline_ag\">Twitter accoun<\/a>t for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/betonline_ag\/\">Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY ADAM GREENE Since 2016, the Kansas City Chiefs have dominated this division, winning five consecutive titles. They also managed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":14634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18845,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18835\/revisions\/18845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}